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eldavojohn writes "A developer working for Lionhead, the studio behind Fable III, told Eurogamer that piracy is 'less problematic' than used game sales, from a business perspective. Mike West, the lead combat designer for the latest Fable, said, 'For us it's probably a no-lose even with piracy as it is. But, as I say, second-hand sales cost us more in the long-run than piracy these days.' So downloading a game is bad, but apparently stopping by a second-hand store to pick up a licensed physical copy of the game ends up hurting them even more."

Bad analogy. Most car parts you find in the parts stores come from 3rd parties, not the OEM. If your car is in warranty then you'll likely get them from the dealer who in turn gets them from the OEM but that's usually as far as it goes unless it's a "dealer-only" item in which case it's also a part that rarely breaks or is hard to reproduce otherwise(the control computers being a good example) and while those do bring in a decent profit when they're needed, they are rarely needed often enough to justify you

Some smarter companies, like Volkswagen, are making it impossible to fix your own car by using non-standard sockets/wrenches. So that means you HAVE to go to the garage, and typically not an independent. You have to go to someone with the necessary VW tools.... aka the dealer.

If it was totally illegal to sell or buy used cars, then the majority of the people who would usually buy a new car every two years would instead buy cheaper cars and drive them for a very much longer time. Those who find it hard to afford a new car would buy the cheapest new car they can find and drive it until it falls apart.

Nope. See my post above this one. This is a massively flawed analogy. Most parts are 3rd party, not OEM. For over 25 years I have been buying parts and repairing cars on at least a weekly basis and in all that time I've only *had* to buy parts from the OEM a handful of times(maybe 5-10 times at most). Hell, it's more likely that I'll need the field service manual from the OEM than any parts.

The problem is that when you plunk out your money to buy the shiny new, it is not a sale. Legally, you're buying a "license" to use the game, which gives game companies the ability to dictate and/or change the terms of those license at their will.

It's not really SCOTUS that needs to address it, it's Congress. We need a law that basically says, "If it looks like a sale, acts like a sale, works like a sale, then it's a sale." Software shouldn't be able to be licensed except in very specific circumstances, none of which apply to individual end users purchasing entertainment software.

If SCOTUS did take up the issue, they need to basically rule most EULAs unconscionable [wikipedia.org].

At any rate, I doubt any of that will happen any time soon. People are too addicted to that hot new Xbox/PS3/PC game to worry about little details like consumer rights.

The judiciary actually does has enough power in the US to do this. In fact, several courts have ruled EULAs invalid (see in particular SoftMan v. Adobe, which ruled that software is sold, not licensed, although it did uphold license restrictions as valid).

The problem is that when you plunk out your money to buy the shiny new, it is not a sale. Legally, you're buying a "license" to use the game, which gives game companies the ability to dictate and/or change the terms of those license at their will.

Let me tell you a story. This story didn't actually happen in the real world. It only took place in a fantasy world that software companies wished they lived in.

I went into a store that sells software. (Pick your favorite - GameStop, Target, Office Depot, whatever.) They had lots of boxed software on the shelves. I selected the one I wanted, took it up to the register, and said, "I'd like to buy this." The cashier replied, "I'm sorry but that isn't for sale. If you'd like to license it, though, please read this agreement and sign here."

Like I said, that didn't really happen. Here's what actually happened.

I told the cashier, "I'd like to buy this," and they replied, "That will be $30." So I handed over my credit card, they scanned it, and I signed the receipt. Then they handed me the software back and said, "Here you are."

At this point, the sale was complete. The purchase agreement was concluded. So I took the boxed software (which I now owned, since it had legally been sold to me) home and opened it up. Inside was a piece of paper covered with tiny writing that I did not bother to read, since it obviously contained no information of value. But if I had read it, I would have discovered it to be mostly incomprehensible legalese. If I had then taken it to a lawyer, they could have translated it for me as follows: "You know that software you just bought? You didn't really buy it. You actually just licensed it, and if you want to use it, you have to agree to all these other terms we didn't tell you about before you bought it and before we took your money."

The only reasonable response, of course, is "@#$% you! I do not agree to any of your terms. Nonetheless, I will continue to use this software, because it belongs to me and I have every right to use it." A purchase it a contract. Once that contract is complete - once they have taken my money and given me the software - it's too late for them to rewrite the agreement and add in new terms.

You don't need a "fair use" exception. The needed exception is already written into copyright law in most countries. In the US, it's 17 USC 117 (a) (1) [cornell.edu].

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

That copy onto the hard drive and then the copying into RAM, each is definitely "an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine". As such, these are legal copies if you own a legal copy of the software (like if, for example, you walked into a store and bought one). The law is solid in this case.

The bit I don't understand is why a court would ever rule an EULA to be an enforceable contract given that the majority of them grant one party (the licensee) absolutely no rights which they don't already have. Why would the court ever support such a one-sided contract as being enforceable?

Ugh, I don't want to see what such a corporate-happy supreme court will do with that.

[Read in a Scalia voice]: "As the corporation made the product, and as the corporation is a person and the consumer is not a person, the corporation retains the rights to the game and the money. Selling a used game is essentially triple theft: it deprives the corporation of it's rightful copy of Fable VI, it deprives the money paid to the person selling the game that should be going to the corporation, and it deprives

This has nothing to do with the First Sale Doctrine, and it is not really an issue of being able to trade your used copy. First off, we have to see what the guy actually said in the article:

"But, as I say, second-hand sales cost us more in the long-run than piracy these days."

The reason second hand sales cost them more is not obvious unless you give it some thought. One reason is that pirates are very unlikely to had bought a legitimate copy either way, they never saw enough value in the product to pa

Some people will buy the game who wouldn't have otherwise because they can sell it to someone else once they are done with it. So money goes to the dev that wouldn't have if there was no second hand sales of games.

Some people will sell some other game they own and use the money they get as part of the payment of buying their new game. So money goes to the dev that wouldn't have if there was no second hand sales of games.

So there's gains and losses, and they likely have no idea what the relative value of the

The summary doesn't account for the very real possibility that a much higher percentage of used game buyers would have bought the game than pirates, had neither had a choice.

In other words, if you look at 100 pirates and 10 used buyers, and stop the piracy and used market, maybe 5 used buyers would pony up, but only maybe 3 pirates. But I'm just pulling those numbers out of the air - you can't say either way without hard numbers, and they're' not being presented here.

But I think we've all figured out at this point that a high piracy rate doesn't have to translate into a lot of lost sales. Every time we hear the "industry" cry the pirates are costing them money, they're conveniently counting every pirated copy as a lost sale, which is so far into fantasy land that it crosses clearly into insulting our intelligence.

Another thing it doesn't take into account it that the used copy was once a paid copy. Essentially the cost of buying the game is just being split among more people, freeing more money to buy other titles.

Now for a company like Lionhead that doesn't really have any other titles, this doesn't help them directly, but for the industry as a whole it means more people are able to buy/play more games.

With piracy, there is no money (for this title) going back to the developers because duplicates are created for n

Add in that some pirates are the "try before you buy" variety, or might later purchase the game out of guilt or because a game crack causes problems, or because they need a legit cd key to play multiplayer.

Isn't this true of any industry?
If I buy a used couch instead of buying it from the manufacturer, don't they take the same "loss"?
It's amazing that now used games sales are being considered "loss" in the same manner as piracy.

The prime assumption is that the person from whom you buy the used couch is making space to buy another new one. Then, you have to decide how many of the new buyers would pay the new product price if they knew there was no resale value.

For your couch analogy, there'd probably be no change in new product sales. (Who buys a couch for its resale value?) But for good old-fashioned car analogies, I think a lot of people would pay less for a new car if they knew it would be 100% worthless whenever they sold it

That is true. I guess the problem is that you tend to get a lot more long-term use out of your couch than a video game, and there is no real disadvantage to buying a game used (unlike that pee-stained couch;)

Of course, that just seems like an argument for designing more re-playable games or picking a better business model. I don't hear Blizzard complaining much about used sales hurting World of Warcraft (due to the business model) or Starcraft (due to the replayability). And apparently the Rock Band fra

Because piracy sometimes leads to sales of new games. Sales of used games never leads to sales of new games.

If only 5% of people who ever pirate games, also buy some of those, that is still more money than the people who buy used games. The games get two owners, the makers get only one profit.

And as to "new games will be worth less if you can't resell them", I don't really buy that. I would venture most games are never sold once purchased. I have over 100 games that I have bought over the last couple of

Sure it is the same, but buying a used game is pretty much identical to pirating that game in that the developers get nothing.And why should some retailer make money selling used games and giving none of it back to the original developers? It is a legitimate concern.

It's worse than that. After pirating a game, the person who plays games has the same amount of money. After buying one second hand, they have less. Since they like playing games, there is a chance that they will buy other games. If someone buys one game second hand, this reduces the chance that they'll buy a different game new. If they pirate it, then there is the same probability.

I can really see this being true. Game piracy does nothing more than get your game's name out there. People are playing it, talking about it, etc. Pretty much no one (statistically) who pirates a game intended on ever purchasing it and thus aren't lost revenue.

People buying used games intended on purchasing the game, but bought used to save $5. They did nothing wrong, but they were a potential source of revenue for the publisher that is lost.

I don't know of a good "fix," because I don't support limiting your right to resell, but at the same time the scale that EB/etc do it causes issues.

In my mind, morally, it's a bit like piracy itself. Me sharing an mp3 rip of an album I've bought with 3-4 friends is not "wrong" in my mind. Were I to rip an album and then sell it on the street for $5 a copy it would be a different story. How you legislate intent and morality, without killing genuine "sharing," is tough.

People buying used games intended on purchasing the game, but bought used to save $5.

I think they're doing it to save a bit more than $5.

If law-abiding folk aren't willing to pay retail for your game, but are willing to pay a much lower cost for a used copy, then this seems to be speaking to an underlying issue. The problem isn't that they're able to buy it used. The problem is that they don't think full retail for your game is worth it. Maybe the problem is that you're charging too much.

Make sense, as those who pirate usually wouldn't be paying in any case, while those who buy used actually have some cash.

But it's also a problem with shorter games without replay value, I'd never sell X-Com, Fallout 1/2, etc. because they can be played again and again, while many games are just 'unlock the next cutscene' with a static plot and outcome.

atleast not from a developer whose job is to design and write the game mechanics; not count the money.

I dont know any devs personally, but i'd expect them to be on the payroll/contract for a game. That sort of stuff should be built into the budget for a game. They get paid if the game sells 100,000 copies or the game breaks record sales.

Hey Lionhead: Provide more content that people are willing to shell out money for. Either that or close up shop and get the hell out of the market, because obviously you are a bunch of idiots.

Somehow the creators of content just want to create once and never work again. Sorry, but this is not how life works in the real world. Continued rent-seeking will make people avoid your new products, and with good reason.

It IS bad for developers because retailers like Gamestop and EB will put used copies on the shelf immediately on launch whenever they get them in, and for a few bucks less. They get a 100% profit, with none of the proceeds going to the developer (which is fine, but it's important to remember that you're not their customer by buying a used copy of a game). It cannibalizes initial sales during the most important time of a game's release, especially when you consider that frequent used game buyers will opt int

No, but that argument is also flawed; DVD (or Blu-ray, I'll refer to both as DVD for random, arbitrary reasons) sales aren't the sole revenue generator for a film that had a theatrical release, and you seldom see used DVD's on the same shelves as new ones, to boot. In fact, most retailers that DO sell DVD's don't bother stocking used DVD's.

A used copy can only exist if someone has already bought a new copy and then chosen to sell it on. The supply of such copies very shortly after a new game is released is likely to have a very close relationship to how poor and overhyped that game is...Very few people are going to buy a game for $70 by choice and then sell it for a fraction of the price a day later. If someone does that, then they were effectively tricked into making that purchase in the first place.If anything, the purchaser should have a window in which they can return the game for a full refund, especially if they bought something which didn't live up to its advertising.

Retailers should be able to resell used copies of games as soon as they have used copies to sell, to place an arbitrary delay hurts end users and hurts retailers.

True, but EB/Gamestop have huge incentives to bring new games back for trade value. When The Godfather was released, there actually was a promotion that if you could beat the game within a certain period of time (I think it was either a few days or a week), you'd trade it back in and it was 'free'. Nowadays, they have their "Most Wanted" lists, with new releases fetching the biggest bounties, and new releases tend to have a "trade 3 and it's free" promotion as well. In other words, EB/Gamestop have put HUGE amounts of effort into making people part with new releases in order to get other games, in a rather turnstile fashion. If you've ever been into an EB or Gamestop, you'll probably notice that there actually are a surprising number of new releases with used stickers on.

It's true that on day 0, there shouldn't be many used copies, but I have witnessed it, in particular with Halo 3. Within less than a week's time, used copies lined the shelves for $5 less than new.

I don't believe that it's fair for a product to have to compete with itself on the same shelves that it's on. Recently used copies are very likely to not have any damage or defects, and EB/Gamestop warrant them as working for a certain period of time, anyway, so there isn't any incentive to pay the extra to buy a full retail copy. This is part of the reason why multiplayer is becoming such a huge cornerstone of game development - Multiplayer communities generally mean that people who play online will continue to do so, rather than trading the game in. It's also why EA and others have been bundling one-use DLC with their games, and why it could very well be possible that in order to combat both piracy and used game sales, one-use (or limited-use) serial keys for console games might be in our future. With that in mind, it would be a LOT better to come to an agreement with publishers over street dates rather than having the bottom taken out from under the entire used game industry in the name of anti-piracy (which is exactly how it would be spun).

Just got 1 copy of Bullet Storm. We have 2 XBoxes. Only one player at a time can load the game in their personal Xbox. However, to access any of the online play features the second player has to purchase a $10 "online pass". Hint: XBL is largely a peer to peer network, hence "Selecting New Host" -- We're not playing on their dedicated servers, only the player's own XBoxes and the MS sponsored matchmaking is needed -- both I've already pay for twice (once for each player in the house). Granted, some in-game stats & ranking may be an excuse to run a separate server and charge for hosting -- but an additional mandatory $10 just to play online? Inexcusable (note: MS servers store the achievements).

From MS Game Studio Docs:

Any matchmaking scenario involves the creation of a network session. Network sessions give XNA Framework games access to profile data on all the gamers in a potential game.

Perhaps they don't use XNA, and roll their own instead -- whos fault is that?

Seems like a non-issue to me as long as this type of XBL lock-out extortion racket is allowed (Even moreso a non issue for me since I've added Epic Games to the list of abusive companies I boycott).

If a game costs 10 bucks new, not much of a secondary market. At least none that a Gamestop like company would have enough wiggle room to bother with. There might be a craigslist here and there, but no business in trade-in games. If you planned at doing $50 at your volume moves up by five-fold, revenue wise it's a wash, your game is more popular, and given the margins in software distribution your profit is probably the same too.

Similarly, the relative hassle/risk of pirating a game isn't appealing if yo

if a game is pirated no money exchanges hands. if a game is passed down no money exchanges hand. if the game is sold then resold, ad nauseam, then it is still a viable asset in the economy. the same goes for books. the only reason games are looked at differently than books is because the industry had created this bullshit belief that their content is somehow more holy.

Yeah. I said it. Fuck off. Let me repeat something I've said multiple times already: You are not entitled to my money. You sold it once, you got paid what you asked for; now shut the fuck up. Think that copy is worth more? Then ask for more when you sell it. Think you're not getting your fair share? Who the hell are you to determine what your fair share is? This isn't a free market that you're after, that's nothing but "Give me money because I said so" highway robbery.

At least the cat's out of the bag now. The problem that creative types (music, film, software) have with piracy has actually nothing to do with whether something illegal is taking place around the fruit of their sweat and blood. It has everything to do with them feeling that they're not making as much money as they think they could. It's a pure money-grab, nothing else. The only difference between the people who complain that the second-hand market is ruining them and basic robbery is that the first group hires government agents to do their bidding. The second group has at least the decency to do their own dirty work.

To that, I say Fuck You. Don't like it? Fuck you, with a chainsaw.

Peter Molyneux, I have great respect for you. You created Populous, which by itself gives you a near eternal free pass to be a dick. But any interest I have in Fable III will now be satisfied by buying it second hand. I might even write you an email, showing you my original copy, the second hand sticker on it, and a big middle-finger across it. Yeah, I know, you didn't offer up these sentiments. That was one of your underlings. Then get your underlings under control. The same goes for every other entitled asshole who feels that just because they made something pretty, they deserve to be paid in perpetuity anytime someone looks at their work, or creates something that vaguely resembles it.

And just in case anyone missed my point: Fuck you. I'm going to the flea-market.

This developer is wrong. Second hand sales cost them nothing. Not making a sale to someone isn't a monetary loss. This sense of entitlement from copyright holders - that somehow it is their moral right to get paid, not on the basis of units shipped, but whenever anybody looks at their creation - needs to get stepped on, hard.

Developers complain about pirating on the PC, so they make console-only titles, then they complain about used game sales. I would have purchased Red Dead Redemption on Steam, had it been available -- instead I bought a used copy at GameStop for $20. Sorry Rockstar. Eventually all games will be delivered digitally, and the producers will need to have a more sane stance on pricing. Not every game is worth $60.

Funny you should bring up Steam in this discussion, since Steam is a blatant attempt, at least in part, to forever destroy the secondary game sales market. You can't transfer games from one account to another, and if you try to sell the account, and Valve catches you, they just ban the account forever and NO ONE ever plays those copies of the game again.

There was a story awhile back about Valve catching someone, and banning their account, which had something like $2000 worth of games on it.Flush. Watch it swirl down the drain.

In which case Valve refunded the account. Regardless, this is the future whether you like it or not. You won't be buying physical media in the very near future. The 360 and PS3 may well be the last consoles to even have removable storage of any kind -- if not, the next generation will be the last.

I bet Ford and GM feel the same way. Perhaps they should stick something in the contract when you buy a car that requires you to destroy it when your done with it and to never sell it second hand to anyone. Then they should install software in the vehicle that allows them to remotely disable it if someone other than you trys to drive it. And if you think this comparison is ridiculous, let me assure you that I've seen purchases for software in the corporate environment that BY FAR exceed the value of any car you could buy and had these very restrictions on it.

What is keeping them from selling more is pricing too high. If they dropped game prices down to about $20, they would kill the used games market and sell games to people who wouldn't even think about whether or not they would like the game at all.

Ahh, I see, now that they've pretty much given up trying to fight piracy they're setting their sights on the LEGAL sales of previously-owned games. Hey douchebags, why not just make great games and sell them at a reasonable price? No one wants to spend $60 on a steaming pile of horse turd, which is over 90% of the shovelware that publishers are putting out these days. Most of them aren't even worth buying used. And then they are totally flabbergasted why no one wants to buy their shit.

In this age of Call Of Duty 3000, people even sell on games they like and get the sequel.

The obvious solution is to release games at the 'used' price point, then everyone will consider it worth it from the start. There wouldn't be much of a used market if all the guys who wait for sensible prices buy the game as soon as it's released.. you'd still get some supercheap guys who want used copies, but not that many. Especially when physical media dies out! I wonder if people sell Steam accounts..

I guess I fall into the super cheap crowd these days. I've payed the high price of games (SC2, CIV5 and Portal 2 being the most recent) for many years and very few have been worth the price. I finally kicked my MMO habit a several months ago I have been buying a backlog of games that are 3-4 years old for $5 each as they pop up on Steam. I think I like my new game purchasing model. I doubt I will pay more than $100 a year for games going forward and will probably never play through half of the ones I do

Yep. Considering all the games I had were gifted and I paid NOTHING for them, you can believe I made myself a nice grip of change off an old steam account with over 200 titles, totally clean, legit, not banned from any server.

I've boycotted Starcraft 2 until I can get a 3-pack, which will be the ACTUAL full game, for $60 or less.

Of course, that's going to take a while. But if more people did like me, Blizzard (and a host of other companies) would learn they can't just turd out 1/3 of the game and demand tons of money for it while holding back the rest for "sequels" or "DLC."

Assuming you watched them at all, did you also wait until all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies were available for one low price? After all, they wanted you to go to the movies 3 times, or buy 3 movies, even though they were all part of one story!

Your point doesn't take into account if 1/3 of the story is just as much entertainment as a full story of some other game.

Not a Starcraft 2 fanboy, I played Starcraft but have since moved to consoles.

what features?matchmaking is about the only thing better in sc2 worth mentioning and you are comparing games created 12 years apart (good matchmaking was present in wc3 already). Sc1 was pretty much the state of the rts art when it came out. With SC1 you could play on any of 4 available gateways (now regions 60bucks a pop) plus there was lan allowing you to create ad-hoc lan parties anywhere.

And you must be joking about the quality of sc1 story. Maybe it was not a literary nobel prize material but it's leap

No value is "lost" in the second hand market. A lot of people find buying a game for $69.95 to be ridiculous, and will never ever do it. Those "sales" are already "lost" because the producers are placing the price higher than the value. Make games a better value and you will get more sales.

This needs to be modded to +11. If only the music, movie, software industry would figure this one thing out...we're willing to pay but we're NOT willing to mortgage our houses for a bunch of ones and zeroes that will be next to worthless in under a year.

Oh, it's worse than that. The person who downloaded it might have decided that the game was really good, and might then decide to actually buy a new copy. It's safe to say that someone who buys a used copy will not buy a new copy.

So yes, used sales are a lot worse than piracy from pretty much every perspective except one: there are a limited number of used copies of a title, whereas the number of pirated copies is unbounded. To that end, piracy has the potential to be more harmful than used sales when the number of people who pirate a piece of software who would otherwise have bought it exceeds the number of people who buy it used. In practice, this means that used sales are worse than piracy across the board.

That doesn't mean that used sales are bad, mind you. Then again, in some cases, neither is piracy, but only when "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" is more than just an excuse for being a cheapskate.

I despise pirating games - however, I DO pirate them now due to DRM. For instance, I own a copy of a game and was going to purchase the GOTY edition with the DLC and expansion included - then I found out that they've already turned off the DRM server, so if you buy the GOTY edition, you can't access any of the DLC that you purchased. Guess what I did instead of clicking "add to cart" on Amazon? I jumped to the pirate bay instead.

I gladly pay for DRM-free games and the lower the price, the more willing I

It is very likely that the people who are pirating the games are the same people that wouldn't be able to buy the game in the first place, or who are unaware of how well/poorly the game will play and forgot that demos exist.

What world do you live on? Here on Earth playable demos have largely gone the way of the dodo. What percentage of games have them? 5-10%?

Wha? If anything, the first Fable game went on too long for me; I didn't buy the sequels because I just couldn't invest the time to get everything out of them.

Then again, when I play RPG adventure-type games like that I tend to try to explore every feature/plotline/mission, rather than finish it as fast as possible and move on. That's why I'm still playing Fallout 3 on and off after 2 years:)

The funny part is that I would probably have bought Fable III if it wasn't for the DRM, because it seems like it would be worth a try despite the numerous problems. But becasue of they put extra DRM on top of the Steam DRM I spent the money on a DRM-free copy of Witcher 2 instead.

As much as I hate to say it, physical media is largely dead. Digital only, with all titles being tied to your personal information, thus letting corporations tailor advertisements to you, is going to be standard very shortly.

I think the next gen will still be physical, but after that it is very unlikely.

Maybe in Japan, South Korea and Lithuania where you can get a decent internet connection for a reasonable price. Here in America, with ever-increasing last-mile prices and ever-tightening bandwidth caps (despite backhaul becoming exponentially cheaper year-over-year), in two console generations most people won't even be able to afford to play a game online, let alone download one.

The point was that stopping by a second-hand store to pick up a licensed physical copy of the game gets a developer zero revenue, as opposed to stopping by a first-hand retailer to pick up a licensed physical copy of the game.

But there's absolutely no reason to believe that someone who can't sell the game second-hand would still buy it at full price or that someone who buys games second-hand would buy them at full price if buying second-hand wasn't an option. Quite likely both people would wait until it hit the bargain bin and get it for $5.

People only sell games that aren't good enough to play after playing through once. Thus the used game market only damages bad games, enabling the consumers to express their opinion after they bought the product.

Not really. Even good games are usually available used reasonably soon after the game hits retail. There are apparently a lot of people that get rid of games as soon as they've played through it once (of course, it can take months or even years for GameStop and their ilk to set reasonable prices on used games - it does disgust me somewhat when they are selling a brand-new game for $60, and the used copy for $55 when you know they are only paying $25 for the trade-in).

People only sell games that aren't good enough to play after playing through once. Thus the used game market only damages bad games, enabling the consumers to express their opinion after they bought the product.

I think that's over-generalizing. They're not very common, but games do come out from time to time that have very good replay value. One of my favorite examples was Deus Ex. Not only did it let you ally yourself with one of three factions, (and change loyalties on a whim) but it allowed for somewh